Can't, Won't, Did
by Sela McGrane
Summary: Years of denial have led to this. HG/MM ... you probably should not read this at work.


**Was looking for a totally different file and stumbling on a oneshot that I started two months ago - my partner in crime, Katlynn, made me finish it, after reading what I'd already written. So, you can blame her for this one. She also kindly beta'd this in the process. Enjoy!**

* * *

There had been dozens of moments like this over the years. Moments where Hermione Granger had been faced by her former Professor, Minerva McGonagall, and for a second, she thought there was love in those stunning, emerald eyes. However, like every time before, the moment would pass and Hermione would go on believing that the love she felt for Minerva - a love she had years ago confessed - was unrequited.

Minerva had been quite firm in her insistence that while she appreciated being kept apprised of her protege's life happenings, that the only relationship that could exist between them was of a platonic nature. Of course, after the confession, the two women generally avoided one another - for Hermione's part, it was because seeing Minerva hurt so much, and for the Headmistress, Hermione assumed it was an issue of avoiding the awkwardness. And then, there were moments - moments like this - when the younger witch wondered.

"Hermione," Minerva said softly, a smile gracing her lips as the two of them bumped into each other at Flourish and Blotts. "Hello."

"Hi," the twenty six year old muttered, blushing. "How have you been, Minerva?"

"Oh, well enough," the Headmistress replied. "Hogwarts, of course, keeps me busy."

"Still there, then?"

"You know me - I couldn't imagine being anywhere else," Minerva said, shrugging.

Hermione looked away, heart breaking all over again. Yes, she did know Minerva. Better than most. Still, the older woman kept at a distance, and claimed that Hermione was the better for it. "Right," she mumbled.

"Hermione…" Minerva sighed. "Can't you just…"

"What?" the younger woman asked fiercely. "Forget you? Fall out of love? Not bloody likely!"

Minerva looked away, and Hermione's heart melted when she realized that her mentor was fighting back tears.

"Why are _you_ crying?" she asked.

"I'm _not_ crying," the older witch stated firmly, meeting Hermione's gaze again.

"You're trying not to, anyhow," Hermione said pointedly. "Why?"

"I don't like to see you in pain," Minerva said.

Hermione had seen Minerva cry once before, the day she'd returned to Hogwarts for her seventh year, mere hours after finding out her parents had been killed by Death Eaters, despite her efforts to protect them. Minerva had met her at the gate, and tears had begun to fall as soon as she pulled her protege into her arms. Hermione had later asked her why she'd cried that day - they weren't _her_ parents, after all - and Minerva had simply said that she did not like seeing her student suffering.

"Why?" Hermione asked the lingering question. "Why do you care if I'm hurting?"

"Because…" Minerva muttered. "I just...do."

Hermione squared her shoulders and looked Minerva in the eye. She'd officially had enough of this _game_ with her former Professor. "Are you in love with me?" she whispered. "And for the love of Merlin, don't you dare even think about lying to me."

"Hermione we cannot be more than friends…" Minerva rushed to say.

"Are you in love with me?" Hermione repeated, taking a step closer to the older woman.

"It's wrong…"

"The truth, Minerva!" Hermione hissed.

"_Yes,_" came a barely audible reply.

Hermione just stood there for a moment, adjusting to what the woman she had been in love with for _years_ had just admitted. "Yes?" she asked.

Minerva nodded. "Merlin forgive me."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hermione asked.

"I believe that I just did, my dear," the older woman said gently. "Though as to why I didn't tell you before - Hermione, it cannot be. _We_ cannot be."

"I always knew you'd feel that way, even if you did love me in return," Hermione huffed. "But it's nice, after all these years, to know I'm not suffering alone, and that I'm not totally off my rocker in seeing the signs that I saw."

"What signs?" Minerva inquired. "I'd thought I'd hidden my feelings rather well, even if you were so bold as to proclaim yours, a few years ago."

"It was the little things," the younger woman explained. "I mean, the fact that you kept in touch, or that in all of your efforts to keep your distance, you never once directly said you didn't have feelings for me; that you didn't care about me. You just made comments about how our relationship couldn't be more than platonic."

"Ah, so it was in what I didn't say and do, rather than what I did?" Minerva asked.

"Exactly," the former Gryffindor nodded. "Honestly, anyone I know who knows how I feel about you thinks I'm a bit mad for thinking you might feel something too, but here it looks like I was right after all."

"So what now, Hermione?"

"Dunno. What do you think?"

"I think I should go," Minerva sighed, turning to do just that.

"I suppose so," Hermione heard herself agree a minute later, turning her attention back to the book she'd been hunting when she came into the shop. Granted, she simply stared at a randomly selected page, fighting back tears for a good long minute before she finally let the tome slip from her hands and she collapsed onto the hardwood floor, silently sobbing.

* * *

Minerva made it back to Hogwarts without shedding a tear. In fact, she made it through the rest of the day without breaking down, though anyone who saw her noticed her sedated mood. Filius asked if she was alright, and Sybil predicted that she was on the edge of certain death. As the Headmistress closed the door to her quarters behind her later that night, the truth in Sybil's statement hit her, and she found herself curled up in a ball on her sofa, crying her eyes out. She _was_ dying. Hiding the fact that she loved Hermione Granger from everyone, including the younger witch herself, had been something akin to easy, as it kept the problem contained. Now, Hermione knew how she felt, and suddenly Minerva's world was spinning out of control. There no longer was a barrier between her yearning and the impulse to act. There no longer was a secret to be kept. Her soul was laid bare now, and it hurt so, so much.

What was it, anyhow, that kept her from giving Hermione what she desired; from what _she _desired? The simple answer was propriety. The not so simple answer was pride. Everything she'd been raised to believe said that _relations_ between two members of the same gender was unnatural: it was wrong, dirty, sinful. She simply _couldn't_ betray her morals.

Right?

"Oh bloody fucking hell," Minerva muttered to herself. "Get a grip on yourself, McGonagall! Don't you even think about it!"

But despite her inner protests she found herself pulling on her cloak, gripping her wand tightly, and striding back out her door toward the castle gates. If she'd meant to seek Hermione out, it was hardly necessary, as when Minerva reached the gate, she found the younger woman already there, standing in the snow, shivering as she stared at the approaching figure.

"What are you doing here?" the Headmistress asked.

"Where were you going?" Hermione countered.

"Where I should not have been," Minerva admitted softly. "Hermione…"

"Let me in," the younger witch said firmly, placing her hand on the cold iron.

Minerva groaned, knowing her resolve was all but gone. "Why must you do this to me?"

"I love you," Hermione said gently, reaching through the gate and grasping her former Professor's hand, pulling her flush against the gate, much as her own body was.

Minerva gravitated toward the warmth of Hermione's body, the iron set firmly between them cold and unmoving. A spell; a single spell uttered from her lips was all it would take to vanish the gate and then their bodies would bleed together, and all chance of stopping _this_ from happening would be gone.

"Please…" Hermione begged, one hand reaching the elder woman's waist, and the other raising to stroke Minerva's cheek, her thumb ghosting over a slack lower lip, the gentle pressure causing all her remaining resolve to vanish.

"_Pando tutula,_" she uttered, and just a moment later, the gate between them vanished, and Hermione fell into Minerva's waiting arms.

"Minerva," Hermione murmured, holding tightly to her former professor. "Oh, gods, _Minerva…_"

"What am I going to do with you?" Minerva asked, stroking her former pupil's cheek as they made eye contact again.

"Kiss me?"

She'd known it would come to this. She'd known that opening that gate would mean crossing a line she's sworn to never cross. The breaking of Minerva's resolve in _not_ doing it didn't mean that it was any easier to do; just that she couldn't stop herself. She had become her own worse enemy, and every moment from this one forward was going to hurt. It was going to burn her alive, if it hadn't already. Cold as it was out here now, her skin was on fire as Hermione's hands ran over her waist, fingers daring to meet the swell of her breasts.

Slowly, surely, Minerva took Hermione's face between her own hands and tilted her head down. Hermione's lips moved to meet her own, and the next thing she knew, they were kissing. Slowly and tentative at first, but as Hermione became more bold, Minerva met the thrust of her tongue with equal vigour. Hands began to wander, and after a few minutes of kissing in the snow, Hermione pulled away.

"Let's go somewhere warmer, and less public," she whispered, nuzzling the older woman's neck.

Panic began to fill Minerva's chest. _This can't be happening,_ she thought. Yet, her actions no longer seemed to be controlled by her mind, and without much further thought, and she wrapped her arm around Hermione's thin waist and pulled her beyond the border of the gate. A moment later, she'd apparated them to her Manor in the Scottish highlands. If she was going to take Hermione to bed, it would not… _it could not_ ...be at Hogwarts.

With a flick of her wrist she sent a Patronus to Filius, indicating that she'd had need to step out of the castle, and as soon as that was done, she pulled Hermione back into a scorching kiss. Hermione didn't ask where they were as they stumbled through the front door and into the foyer of McGonagall Manor. She had either guessed, or didn't care. Minerva thought it was probably the former, as Hermione had borderline stalked her over the years, and _had_ to have become familiar with her family home.

"Min…" Hermione gasped as the older woman apparated them right from the foyer into her large bedroom. Why she hadn't done that in the first place…

Oh, right, she's been trying to talk herself out of this. "Damnit!" she cursed, pulling away, leaving Hermione standing in front of her crackling fireplace. She closed her eyes, back to the younger woman as she stood at the foot of her King sized canopy bed.

Neither woman did or said a thing for a few moments. Finally, Hermione's voice broke the silence. "Minerva," she said gently. Soft, warm arms encircled her waist, and Minerva couldn't help but lean into the source of comfort. "Please… just let it go. Whatever holds you back - let it go."

The older witch did not reply, but she did not try to pull away either. Suddenly, Minerva felt deft fingers pulling at her robe's fastenings, and a minute later, her outer robe fell to the floor in a heap. The warm, winter underrobe was a soft, stretchy material, and after a pause, Hermione made short order of that too, pulling it slowly down, over Minerva's shoulders and letting it rest on the older woman's hips.

Her pulse beat rapidly under tender kisses that Hermione bestowed on her neck. Slowly, Minerva reached behind her and unsnapped her bra, though she held it to her breasts, as if it would protect her from what was happening. "I can't…" she pleaded again.

"You can," Hermione assured her, pushing the older woman forward gently, urging her to lay on the bed.

Minerva allowed her bra to escape her death grip, and as she moved to lay on her stomach, her dress fell off, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. She heard a rustle of fabric, and assumed that Hermione was joining her in this state of undress. She couldn't look, though. She buried her face in the mattress, praying that this was a dream. Just a dream… this could not be happening…

Then, Hermione straddled her former professor, just below her hips, though she did not rest any of her weight there. Minerva shivered as soft hands rested on her waistline, and then slowly began to move up her side, coming to a stop as her fingers found full breasts, pressed into the bed. The touch stirred Minerva from her self loathing, and for a moment, she relished in the sensation. "Hermione…" she whispered.

Whatever resolve left inside her vanished a moment later, as Hermione's right hand reached behind her, and gently began to caress the inside of Minerva's thigh. Moments after that, deft fingers brushed against Minerva's underwear, seeking an already erect and throbbing clitoris. She found her mark quickly, and as the older woman's hips began to thrust in response, Hermione let her weight fall on her mentor's lower back, forcing her to remain still. "Does that feel good?" the younger woman cooed, adding a bit of pressure.

"Gods...yes…" Minerva moaned in admission.

Hermione stopped touching her clit a minute later, and leaned forward to press her decidedly naked body across Minerva's back. Her hand brushed away locks of ebony hair, and it was only now that Minerva realized that her hair had come undone. Hermione's purpose in moving the hair became apparent quickly, as she bit down lightly on the older witch's neck.

The feeling of arousal was so intense that Minerva's arms moved of their own accord, trying to push herself upward and into Hermione's arms. Hermione quickly twisted off her perch, and held the older woman's body against herself via grasping Minerva's breasts like handles. Before Minerva knew what was happening, and was leaning against Hermione in an upright position, and a second later Hermione's left hand released a breast and ghosted down Minerva's stomach, and once more began to caress a now aching clit. Suddenly, the underwear she was still wearing seemed to be very much in the way.

"Please…" she begged, pulling at the elastic band around her hips with her own shaking fingers.

"Now you're ready…" Hermione said smoothly. Minerva had no doubt there was a smirk on the young woman's face at that moment.

"Gods…" she moaned. "Please!"

Hermione stopped rubbing Minerva's clit. She moved from her position, allowing the older witch to fall softly backwards on a pile of pillows. Then, she moved between Minerva's legs, and pulled at the underwear. Slowly, brown eyes connected intensely with her own emerald ones, and they remained that way as the final piece of fabric between them was pulled away. Hermione had taken her own underwear off when she'd otherwise undressed before, and suddenly, the reality of being naked, in bed, with another woman, didn't seem like a bad thing at all, to Minerva. It was simply beautiful.

Maintaining eye contact, Hermione leaned down, and placed soft kisses on the inside of Minerva's thighs. Higher and higher those kisses came, and before long, the older woman found herself holding her breath, knowing what was next; knowing where the next kiss would fall. Much to her own surprise, the next thing out of her mouth were the words: "I want you."

When she said _want_, she meant it in every sense of the word. It wasn't just about the physical want, or desire. Her soul wanted this woman. Her heart was already in Hermione's possession. With every fiber of Minerva McGonagall's being, she _wanted_ Hermione Granger.

Three seconds later - Minerva had her.

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW! **


End file.
